The shock of her appearing had for the moment beaten down his intoxication. It was now boiling up again, heating his nerves and his imagination, though he seemed sober and self-possessed. "All right," said he. "I know you didn't mean to insult me, and I'll forget it."
She gazed quickly at him in amazement, started to speak, checked herself.
"But I want to tell you," he went on, his tone and gestures forcible-feeble, "I want to tell you this business of my being shut out has got to stop. You must arrange for Vaughan to come down here to live, and for me to take his rooms up at the house."
This demand seemed to her as utterly unlike him as the dictatorial tone in which it was made. To condemn him—no, more—not to love him the more tenderly—because he was in this mood of distracted desperation would be unworthy of the love she professed. She crushed down her sense of repulsion, went to him, laid her cheek against his hair. "My love," she murmured. "We mustn't ever forget that we have only each other. We'll never let any misunderstanding come between us, no matter how blue we get." And she turned his head and kissed him.
With an intoxicated man's fickleness, he switched abruptly from anger to sentiment. His eyes became moist and shiny. A sensual drunken smile played round his heavy mouth. She saw though she was trying hard not to see. He reached round and drew her toward his lap. She gently resisted, while she was nerving herself to submit—would it not be a very poor sort of love that would let itself be chilled by a mood—a mood in which all love's warmth, all love's gentleness were needed as they are not needed when everything is pleasant and easy?
The tears of self-pity welled into his eyes. "God, how low I've sunk!" He got himself on his uncertain legs, arranged his features into a caricature of an expression of dignified command. "I want you to send Helen—Miss March—away," he said, waving his finger at her. "She's a pure woman. She mustn't be contaminated."
She gazed at him in horror. "Basil!" she gasped.
"Yes—I mean it. Oh, you understand. I'm not fit to 'sociate with her—and neither are you."
With a wild cry, she turned to fly. He lurched forward, caught her by the arm. "But we're just about fit for each other," he said. "And that's the truth—if I am drunk." He nodded at her. "I should say, 'That's the truth because I am drunk.' It's giving me the courage to speak out a few things that've been gnawing at my insides for weeks." And his fingers clasped her arm like steel nippers.
"Basil! You're hurting me."